Ready for a laugh?
Some of you may remember that I was complaining about a 'pinging'
noise that my '72 B was making at idle and under load. Well,
adjusting the timing and mixture made no difference, so I removed the
cylinder head to look for excessive carbon and/or damaged valves.
Finding neither, I cleaned it up and put everything back together.
Lo and behold, the noise was still there, completely unchanged.
About that time, an old-timer working at the base hobby shop walks
by, not knowing what my original complaint was, and says "Sounds like
you've got a loose fan belt." Sure enough, the lower alternator
adjust bolt was missing, and the belt was more than a little loose.
The noise was the loose belt slapping the water pump pulley and
making the fan blades ring! A new bolt and a few seconds with a
prybar later, and the noise is gone. At least I replaced the seeping
head gasket and decarbonized the pistons, so it wasn't a TOTAL waste
of time. Keep in mind that I have never actually HEARD pre-ignition
ping in my life, so I don't feel too bad about being misled. Looking
back on it, with a '72 block and a '65 head, my CR is only about 7 or
7.5:1, so I probably couldn't make the engine ping if I wanted to!
Anyhow, just wanted to give you guys a laugh, and make you feel
better about anything YOU might have done stupid this past week.
Cheers,
Scott Gardner
gardner@lwcomm.com
www.lwcomm.com/~gardner
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